Singapore-based Newkia looking to bring back Nokia

Many people didn’t like Nokia’s decision to sell its handset business to Microsoft. Nokia’s both existing and former employees were among the most vocal opponents of the deal, and one of them wants to do something about it.

His name is Thomas Zilliacus and for seven years, he served as the Finnish company’s Asia-Pacific CEO. He’s now looking to launch a new company called Newkia, and offer solidly built devices running Android.

His new company will gather a number of former Nokia employees who have expressed interest in developing for Android. “What Newkia wants to do is to use Nokia know-how, technology, and design to build the world’s best smartphones, but running on Android,” he said.

In the interview with ZDNet, Zilliacus noted how Nokia missed opportunities because it was arrogant, due to its dominant position in the market at that time. He said that the company had an iPhone-like prototype four years before Apple launched its smartphone. Alas, this product was never launched because Nokia thought the market wouldn’t be interested.

Newkia plans to launch its first device within a year, though it still needs to raise a substantial amount of cash and gather some top talent to create a compelling product. R&D will be done in Finland, while the company will operate from Singapore, primarily serving the Asian audience. We’ll be watching this space and get back to you as soon as there’s something new to add. Stay tuned…